-Caveat Lector- Dear List, With all the debate about eliminating bilingual education and the data against doing this, I thought I would send some information to the list about this. Sincerely, Neil Brick Research has shown that the longer students are in two-way developmental bilingual education programs (50 % first language / 50 % second language for 12 years), the higher the students score on standardized tests in English. The second most effective program for second language learners is Late-Exit Bilingual Education plus content ESL. "...The elementary school program with the most success in language minority students' long term academic achievement, as measured by standardized test across all subject areas, is two-way developmental bilingual education. As a group, students in this program...reach the 50th percentile or NCE (National Curve Equivalent) in their second language generally after 4-5 years of schooling in both languages.... Students in well-taught bilingual classes that continue through at least sixth grade (late-exit or maintenance bilingual programs) with substantial cognitive and academic development through both first and second languages, are also able to reach the 50th percentile or NCE within 4-7 years and maintain their academic performance at secondary level in academic classes taught all in English." (From data aggregated from a series of 3-6 year longitudinal studies from well-implemented, mature programs in five school districts and from the Ramirez 1991 dataset, c Thomas and Collier, 1995) Basic interpersonal communication skills (BICS) refer to context embedded speech (like visual cues and experiential activities), which differ from cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP) which takes place in a context reduced environment (manipulating concepts and solving problems). (Cummins, 1984). Some people make the mistake that once a student can converse in English (BICS), they will naturally perform well academically (CALP) in English. It has been postulated that BICS and CALP are two different sets of skills. "a) language proficiency includes proficiency in academic tasks as well as basic conversation, b) cognitive academic language proficiency may take 5 to 7 years to achieve, and c) skills learned in the first language automatically transfer to the second language." (Language Minority Students in the Mainstream Classroom, Carrasquillo and Rodriguez, Multilingual Matters Ltd., c 1996 p. 26-27) Collier's research (1987) supports the theory that LEP (Limited English Proficiency) students may need 5 to 7 years to perform well (like native learners) on academic tasks. Willig (1985) "concluded that bilingual education programs that supported the minority language were consistently superior...(and) produce higher performance in tests of achievement throughout the curriculum. Small to moderate advantages were found...in reading, language skills, mathematics and overall achievement (in second language tests in English)." A conclusion found in the Ramirez (Ramirez, Yuen and Ramey, 1991) study cited above is, "Spanish speaking students can be provided with substantial amounts of primary language instruction without impeding their acquisition of English language and reading skills....The data suggest that by Grade 6, students provided with English-only instruction may actually fall further behind their English speaking peers. Data also document that learning a second language will take six or more years'." (Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 2nd Ed., Colin Baker, Multilingual Matters Ltd., c 1996 p.213-215) More recent research and theory also backs up the idea that late-exit or two-way bilingual education programs help children learn English better than in short term bilingual or total immersion programs. U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley in his presentation, "Excelencia Para Todos- Excellence for All The Progress of Hispanic Education and the Challenges of a New Century" Bell Multicultural High School, Washington, D.C., March 15, 2000 stated "Good, solid bilingual programs can make a difference in helping students learn English and achieve academically. I am pleased that the budget plan that the president recently submitted to Congress for FY 2001 increases funding for Bilingual Education..." "Bilingual Education, the Acquisition of English, and the Retention and Loss of Spanish" by Stephen Krashen (http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JWCRAWFORD/Krashen7.htm) "What the research shows - A number of studies have shown that bilingual education is effective, with children in well-designed programs acquiring academic English as well and often better than children in all-English programs (Willig, 1985; Cummins, 1989; Krashen, 1996; Greene, 1997)" "Cases like these provide strong support for the principles underlying bilingual education and are confirmed by numerous empirical studies showing that those who have a better education in their primary language excel in English language development (research reviewed in Krashen, 1996)." "Literacy developed in the primary language transfers to the second language." Perhaps one of the most convincing studies is "School Effectiveness for Language Minority Students" - Wayne P. Thomas and Virginia Collier George Mason University - Disseminated by National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education The George Washington University Center for the Study of Language and Education 1118 22nd Street, NW Washington, DC 20037 (http://www.ncbe.gwu.edu/ncbepubs/resource/effectiveness/index.htm) "The research includes findings from five large urban and suburban school districts in various regions of the United States where large numbers of language minority students attend public schools, with over 700,000 language minority student records collected from 1982-1996." "We have found that examination of language minority students' achievement over a 1-4 year period is too short-term and leads to an inaccurate perception of students' actual long-term performance, especially when these short-term studies are conducted in the early years of school. Thus, we have focused on gathering data across all the grades K-12, with academic achievement data in the last years of high school serving as the most important measures of academic success in our study." "We have found that only quality, long-term, enrichment bilingual programs using current approaches to teaching, such as one-way and two-way developmental bilingual education, when implemented to their full potential, will give language minority students the grade-level cognitive and academic development needed to be academically successful in English, and to sustain their success as they reach their high school years." "The first predictor of long-term school success is cognitively complex on-grade-level academic instruction through students' first language for as long as possible (at least through Grade 5 or 6) and cognitively complex on-grade-level academic instruction through the second language (English) for part of the school day, in each succeeding grade throughout students' schooling." "The second predictor of long-term school success is the use of current approaches to teaching the academic curriculum through two languages.""The third predictor is a transformed sociocultural context for language minority students' schooling... One way that some schools have transformed the sociocultural context for language minority students is to develop two-way bilingual classes." "Cummins found that... it took at least 5-7 years, on the average, for them to approach grade-level norms on school tests that measure cognitive-academic language development in English. Cummins (1996) distinguishes between conversational (context-embedded) language and academic (context-reduced, cognitively demanding) language, stating that a significant level of fluency in conversational second language (L2) can be achieved in 2-3 years; whereas academic L2 requires 5-7 years or more to develop to the level of a native speaker." From: "Bilingual Education: It works Bilingual education is generally misunderstood -- even though people appear to understand many of its underlying principles." Published in Rethinking Schools, Winter 2000/2001. Vol 15 (2): 2,9,25. By Stephen Krashen - "Controlled studies consistently show that children in such properly organized bilingual classes acquire at least as much English as those in all-English classes and usually acquire more (Willig, 1985; Krashen, 1996). The most recent review of this research was done by Prof. Jay Greene of the University of Texas at Austin, using statistical tools far more precise than those used in previous reviews. Greene concluded that the use of the native language in instructing limited English proficient children has "moderate beneficial effects" and that "efforts to eliminate the use of the native language in instruction ... harm children by denying them access to beneficial approaches" (Greene, 1997). "...in the same state that voted to dismantle bilingual education, Arizona, limited English proficient students in bilingual education have outscored those in all-English programs on tests of English reading for the last three years (Crawford, 2000)." >From http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JWCRAWFORD/AZscores.htm - "Stanford 9 English Scores Show - A Consistent Edge For Bilingual Education - by James Crawford - April 15, 2000 - "In 1998-1999, for the third year in a row, students learning English in bilingual education programs scored significantly higher in [English] reading and language than students enrolled in English Only programs, according to the Arizona Department of Education (ADE). The comparison of Stanford 9 achievement test results is found in the ADE's latest report on the education of English learners in Arizona." http://www.californiatomorrow.org/files/pdfs/API_REPORT_PRESS_RELEASE_12-5.PDF - Californians Together: A Roundtable for Quality Education For Immediate Release: Contact: Martha Arevalo - 5/5/00 - (626) 230-8860 - "This study shows that both groups of schools made progress on California's API from 1999 to 2000. Bilingual schools exceeded their growth targets for Hispanic students by almost five ti mes, while the comparison schools exceeded their targets by only four times. California parents making such important educational decisions for their children should know that students in bilingual education are performing better and are learning English," said Dr. Norm Gold, who conducted the study at the request of Californians Together." The studies and theory above show that for students to achieve the highest test scores, they need to be in at least late-exit bilingual education programs. A good resource is : "Condemned Without A Trial - Bogus Arguments Against Bilingual Education" Stephen D. Krashen - Heinemann, Portsmouth, NH, www.heinemann.com Portraits of Success - National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE) - information on succesful bilingual districts is at : http://www.lab.brown.edu/public/NABE/portraits.taf from - http://courses.ed.asu.edu/casanova/protected/research/research.htm THE BILINGUAL RESEARCH JOURNAL Winter 1996, Vol. 20. No. 1, pp. 1-27 DOES RESEARCH MATTER? AN ANALYSIS OF MEDIA OPINION ON BILINGUAL EDUCATION, 1984-1994 Jeff McQuillan & Lucy Tse University of Southern California "The results of the present study are not encouraging for those researchers in bilingual education who believe that the efforts of social scientists can influence public policy issues dealing with education via the national media. Despite overwhelmingly positive evaluations by researchers of bilingual education programs in the United States, the majority of opinion pieces took positions against such programs. This was true even though the primary reason for opposing bilingual education hinged on the empirical question - answered by research in the affirmative - of whether or not the programs were effective. Rather than rely on research, opinion writers on both sides of the issue chose instead to use other sources of information in supporting their positions government reports, news reports, institutional officials, personal anecdotes." Data from Portes, A. and Rumbaut, R. 2001. "Legacies: The Story of the Immigrant Second Generation. Berkeley: University of California Press." Portes and Rumbaut (2001) provide more evidence that English is not in danger. In a large-scale study of over 5000 children of immigrants who were born in the US or in the US at least five years, they found that "knowledge of English is near universal" (p. 118). When interviewed at the end of high school, they reported their English competence to be very high (3.77 out of 4, where 1= low and 4 = high), higher than they rated their competence in the family language (2.75 out of 4)....Also, by the end of high school the vast majority (87.9%) said they preferred to speak English rather than the family language....While few were able to maintain high levels of competence in both languages, those that did had higher self-esteem, reported less depression and had fewer "clashes with parents".. The bilinguals also had higher educational aspirations and had higher grades and did better on tests of English reading and math in junior high school. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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